Lev Theremin - inventor of electronic music, Soviet intelligence officer, political prisoner and Stalin Prize laureate. You Only Live Twice Lavinia Williams

He met Charlie Chaplin, Albert Einstein, Isadora Duncan, Bernard Shaw, Lenin and Rockefeller, and worked with Tupolev. A man with a fantastic destiny, a man-myth - Lev Sergeevich Termen. Great inventor, creator first in the world television device and first in the world electric musical instrument, intelligence officer of the future and simply a Soviet intelligence officer...

Birth of the theremin

On the ancient coat of arms of the ancient French family of Theremins there is a meaningful motto: “No more and no less.” During the Great French Revolution, one of the Theremins fled to Russia. A century later, in 1896, a boy was born into a Russified French family in St. Petersburg, who was named Leo.

WITH youth he amazed those around him with his talents: Lev was fond of mathematics, physics, carried out experiments, something was always exploding in his room, frightening his parents. While studying at the gymnasium, he built an observatory and even discovered an asteroid. Having entered Petrograd University, he studied simultaneously in two specialties: physical and astronomical, while simultaneously studying cello at the conservatory. Even before the revolution, he managed to finish officer school, so he was drafted into the Red Army into an electrical battalion, where he assembled a powerful radio station and was engaged in radio reconnaissance.

In 1920, Lev Theremin began working for Professor A.F. Ioffe at the newly created Physico-Technical Institute in Petrograd. Once a young scientist noticed that the movement of his hands near the capacitor plates (the gap between them was filled with gas) produced strange, wonderful sounds. Theremin tried to put together a melody - classes at the conservatory helped - and the device began to sing. Theremin adjusted his headphones and enjoyed the music emerging from the air and the movement of his hands. At the institute they joked: “Theremin plays the voltmeter.” This is how the world's first non-contact musical instrument was created.

V.I. Lenin became interested in the unusual instrument and invited the inventor to his place. Theremin performed Saint-Saëns' "The Swan" for the leader of the world proletariat. The delighted Lenin decided to try the instrument himself and, with the help of Theremin, played Glinka’s “Lark”. But Lenin’s attention was especially attracted to the second version of the device - the “electronic watchman,” a device for contactless security alarms. It was enough to hide the device’s antenna in the window frame or door, and when an intruder approached, the “electronic guard” would emit a piercing howl! The device was immediately installed in the State Bank, Gokhran and the Scythian Hall of the Hermitage.

Lenin gives the go-ahead for Theremin to tour throughout the country. Moscow, Petrograd, Yaroslavl, Minsk, Nizhny Novgorod - more than 150 lectures and concerts in Russian cities and villages. The inventor named his instrument “theremin” (“theremin’s voice”). The premiere of the first symphonic work for orchestra and theremin took place in May 1924 in Petrograd. Newspapers wrote: “Theremin’s invention is a musical tractor, replacing the plow.”

Television pioneer

Simultaneously with concerts, Termen works at the Physico-Technical Institute and enters the Polytechnic Institute. Ioffe gives him a seemingly fantastic topic for his thesis: “electrical foresight.” But Ioffe believes that his brilliant graduate student will cope with any task. And Theremin did not disappoint the teacher: he created and demonstrated working prototypes of a device for “wireless” image transmission over a distance. Simply put, in 1926 Theremin invented the television!

Newspapers and magazines were choking with delight. Theremin's name is included in the history of world science along with Popov and Edison! Why is Theremin not mentioned in any encyclopedia or in any television reference book? Why did regular television broadcasting in our country begin only in 1939?

After defending his diploma project, Termen was invited to a “high” commission, which included Ordzhonikidze and future marshals Voroshilov, Budyonny, Tukhachevsky. Theremin prepared the equipment for the demonstration (it took place in the building of the People's Commissariat of Defense on Arbat), put the lens on the street, and the Red commanders unanimously screamed with delight when a figure familiar to everyone appeared on the screen - Stalin was walking across the yard. “Far-sighting” was immediately classified, with the intention of using it to protect the state borders of the USSR. The name of the inventor was also classified and forgotten. Only in the 1980s, the materials of Theremin’s thesis became public and fully confirmed his priority in the invention of television. This contribution alone would be enough to immortalize the name of the inventor, but for him it was just one of the episodes of his life.

“The Russian pulls music out of thin air”

In 1927, Lev Sergeevich was sent to Frankfurt am Main, to the International Exhibition - to glorify Soviet science and culture with the help of a theremin. After the exhibition, Theremin triumphantly traveled all over Germany, performing at the famous London Albert Hall and at the Paris Grand Opera. The press of all countries was filled with rave reviews. Albert Einstein wrote: “Sound freely extracted from space is a completely new phenomenon.”

After dizzying success in Europe, Theremin was sent to America. Officially, he represented the People's Education Committee. But there was another, secret mission - to collect information about the American way of life, about the plans of the political elite, to meet with the military, with representatives of the American military business.

American "millionaire"

Theremin lived in New York for a whole decade. He buys a Cadillac and is accepted into the elite US Millionaires Club, although he never became a millionaire. The company he created to produce contactless security alarm systems is thriving. General Electric and RCA acquired a license to manufacture theremins and produced about a thousand of them. In 1930, Theremin invents the electronic cello and his first drum set, the “rhythmikon”. He rents a six-story house for 99 years, where he opens a music studio, instrumental workshops and laboratories, and teaches musicians to play his miracle instrument.

His life, it would seem, is going happily. In his house there are Ravel, Gershwin, Rachmaninov, millionaire philanthropists Dupont, Ford, Rockefeller. He plays music with Einstein: he plays the violin, Theremin plays the theremin. People turn to him for advice on many technical issues. At Einstein's request, he establishes a transcontinental telephone connection between the USA and the USSR. At festivals in New York's Central Park, he is asked to do some unique trick - and Theremin uses a magnetic field to make various objects hang in the air. Theremin is included in the list of the most famous people peace.

Matters of the heart

Lev Sergeevich married for the first time in Leningrad, to a medical doctor, Katya Konstantinova. She went on tour with him to Paris, London, Berlin, and came to America. A job for her was found only 50 km from New York, and the couple met only on weekends. One day a young man came to Theremin and asked Lev Sergeevich for a divorce - it turns out that he and Katya had been having an affair for several months. The couple separated.

But Theremin also had his own American romance with a Russian emigrant, violinist Clara Reisenberg. She became his favorite student and a true virtuoso of the theremin. Theremin was an ardent admirer: he amazed Clara by giving her a mechanical cake for her 18th birthday, which rotated on its axis and was decorated with a candle on top that lit when approaching the cake. Many years later, Clara recalled how she and Lev visited famous dance halls, and very often the lights were pointed at them, and the audience stopped dancing and applauded them, mistaking them for professionals. The romance lasted for several years, but in 1933 Clara married lawyer Robert Rockmore.

About three years later, Lev Sergeevich married black dancer Lavinia Williams. Especially for her, he created a new musical instrument - “terpsiton” (in this name both Terpsichore - the muse of dance, and Theremin). A metal sheet laid on the floor was used as an antenna. Music was created directly in the dance and followed every, even the most insignificant, movement of the ballerina. The great Isadora Duncan also danced on the terpsiton.

Steep route

Suddenly it all comes to an end. In 1938, Theremin was called to Moscow, and he secretly left America on board a Soviet steamship as an assistant captain. Lavinia was told that her husband would return in two or three weeks. Theremin was promised that his wife would arrive in the Union on the next ship. They never saw each other again.

From Moscow, Theremin, like many intelligence officers called from abroad at that time, was sent straight to a camp in Kolyma on false charges. In all Western music encyclopedias, 1938 was listed as the year of Lev Sergeevich’s death. He would have died in the Siberian quarries if his inventive ingenuity had not rescued him again. He came up with special rails for his car, and his team began to exceed the quota several times. In addition, Theremin created a symphony orchestra in the camp. A dispatch about an extraordinary prisoner, sent by the camp authorities to Moscow, reached the Soviet government, and Theremin was transferred to a camp (“sharashka”), where prisoner engineers worked in their specialty. Together with Theremin in this camp were the famous aircraft designer A. N. Tupolev and the future designer spaceships Sergei Korolev (he was Theremin’s laboratory assistant).

In the “sharashka” Termen invented the unique “Buran” system for listening to objects at a long distance. The operating principle of Buran was that an invisible (infrared) beam was aimed at the window. During any conversations in the room, the window glass acted as a membrane. It was a kind of cordless telephone that operated at a distance of about a kilometer. "Buran" was used to bug foreign embassies in Moscow. For many years, the Americans could not find any traces of listening devices in their embassy. It never occurred to them that the building itself was the listening device!

For “Buran” Termen was awarded the Stalin Prize, 1st degree, and was released. He received an apartment in a prestigious building, a dacha, and a car. the inventor appealed to the government to allow his wife Lavinia to come to him from the United States, but received no response. Lavinia waited for him for many years, never remarried, and died in New York in 1988. Theremin was 50 years old when he married for the third time to state security employee Maria Fedorovna Gushchina. In 1948, they had twin girls, Lena and Natasha. Both followed to some extent in their father’s footsteps: Lena became a physicist, and Natasha worked as a music teacher.

After his release, Lev Sergeevich remained secret for a long time, his relatives considered him dead, until in the late forties Termen met him by chance on Manezhnaya Square cousin, famous anthropologist M. F. Nesturkh.

Mechanic of the sixth category

Only in the early 1960s was Lev Sergeevich able to return to work at the Moscow Conservatory. There he created several theremins and terpsitons. A New York Times correspondent accidentally found out about this. The great Theremin is alive! For America it became a sensation, but for Theremin it was a disaster. The management of the conservatory did not like the fact that their employee gave an interview to a representative of the capitalist press. Theremin was fired, and the equipment was thrown into the trash.

The brilliant scientist was out of work at the age of 70. It was worse than bondage - his whole life was in work. But there was a man who was not afraid to help the disgraced scientist. The future rector of Moscow State University, Rem Viktorovich Khokhlov, assigned Theremin to the Department of Acoustics of the Faculty of Physics. Theremin received a position... as a 6th category mechanic: according to Soviet laws, pensioners could only occupy working positions.

At the university, Theremin created new option Theremin, in which the timbres were switched by eye movements: a photocell monitored the pupils. Theremin worked on the problem of direct control of music depending on the psycho-physiological state of a person: the instrument had to be controlled by the composer’s thought. Khokhlov promised Theremin to create a special music laboratory, but did not have time to implement this plan.

Latest triumphs

A huge theremin in Melbourne, Australia. ">

I have long wanted to share this information with you, but I want to warn you that this is copy-paste (a compilation of copy-paste) and, moreover, as far as I know, now there is some kind of conflict between the Theremin Center and the family of Lev Theremin, I don’t know who is right and who is wrong , history will judge, but in any case, the fate of this man is amazing.
IN general Leo Theremin was a real scientist, a patriot and a passionate person; his life was worse than spy novels.

Termen Lev Sergeevich

To the question “Who is Lev Theremin?” nine out of ten people, if they have ever heard such a name, will answer - “inventor of the theremin.” Theremin is so poorly known in his homeland that when a few years ago one of the journalists mistakenly called him “Lev Davidovich” (obviously in consonance with Trotsky), this mistake began to migrate from publication to publication, including even quite reputable media. But Lev Sergeevich’s biographer B. Galeev gives him the following description: “If there had been a competition for a true representative of the 20th century, Lev Theremin could probably claim this title.”

The main range of interests of the inventor Lev Sergeevich Termen can be briefly described as follows: “he was involved in multimedia.” This vague term, introduced into use by computer scientists about twenty years ago, and now, by the way, almost out of use, can be interpreted as follows: technical device, combining various functions of influencing the human senses.

But, perhaps, the most interesting thing about Lev Sergeevich is not even his inventions as such, but his truly fantastic fate, unique even for the 20th century. Lev Theremin, 1930s Lev Sergeevich Termen was born on August 28, 1896 in St. Petersburg, into a noble Orthodox family with French and German roots. At the gymnasium, he became interested in physics and astronomy - according to his own memoirs, he even managed to discover a new asteroid. In 1914, he entered Petrograd University - at two faculties, physics and astronomical, and at the same time studied cello at the conservatory. Then the war began, and he graduated from the military engineering school and the officer electrical engineering school. In total, by the time of his demobilization from the Red Electrotechnical Battalion in 1920, he had three diplomas - the physics and astronomical faculties remained unfinished. Since 1920, Theremin has been working at the famous Phystech (then still a laboratory) of “father” Ioffe. A.F. Ioffe appreciated him and tried not to limit the flight of imagination of a promising employee. In 1921, Theremin created his epoch-making invention, which would later make him famous throughout the world: he designed an electronic musical instrument “Theremin” (which means “Theremin’s voice”).

It is interesting that initially he was not involved in music at all. He was debugging a contactless radio alarm system - by changing the frequency of the oscillating circuit, when an intruder approached him, a sound signal was triggered at the security console1. Today, car enthusiasts are well aware of the ultrasonic “volume sensors” based on a similar principle, which are included in the set of “cool” car alarms. Radio engineer Termen drew attention to the fact that the position of the intruder’s body affects the tone of the signal in the speakers. A graduate of the conservatory, Theremin realized that in this way it was possible to make a real musical instrument, the likes of which had never existed in the world until now. The theremin had two antennas - when your hand approached the first, the frequency of the signal changed, and with the help of the second, you could control its volume with your other hand. Ioffe’s employees described Theremin’s manipulations very expressively: “Theremin plays Gluck on a voltmeter!”

In the fall of 1921, Theremin demonstrated his miracle device at the VIII All-Russian Electrotechnical Congress, where the famous GOELRO plan was adopted, which at one time amazed the science fiction writer H. Wells (remember his book “Russia in the Dark”). The performance of music by Massenet, Saint-Saëns, and Minkus on the theremin interested not only engineers. After an enthusiastic review in the Pravda newspaper, it was necessary to hold special radio music concerts for a wide audience. And in March 1922, Theremin was invited to the Kremlin to show his achievements to V.I. Lenin.3 However, the main goal was to demonstrate the device in a contactless “radio watchman” mode. But most of all Lenin liked how this universal “radio watchman” sang Chopin’s “Nocturne” and Glinka’s “Lark”. He even tried to play the theremin himself. His conclusions inspired the inventor: “Well, I said that electricity can work wonders. I’m glad that we have such a tool.” A few days later, Lenin wrote to his then comrade-in-arms, L. Trotsky:

“Discuss whether it is possible to reduce the guard duty of Kremlin cadets by introducing an electric alarm system in the Kremlin? (one engineer, Theremin, showed us his experiments in the Kremlin...).”4 “Radio watchdog” was actually used later - in the State Treasure Repository, the Hermitage, and the State Bank. However, only specialists knew about this. But for the theremin, after Lenin’s blessing, the time came for a triumphal march across the country. Composers Glazunov, Shostakovich, Gnessin are present at radio music concerts. The inventor expands the scope of experiments - combines a theremin with dynamic color, tries to achieve a synthesis of radio music with changing tactile influences (through specially equipped armrests of chairs). And concerts - in many cities of the country, dozens, hundreds of performances, for the benefit of promoting electrification, which turned out to be subject to art! It is difficult to refuse the pleasure of quoting some press reviews that carry the flavor of that time: “Theremin’s invention is a musical tractor, replacing the plow”; “Theremin’s invention did what the automobile did in transportation. Theremin’s invention has a very rich future”; “Solving the problem of the ideal instrument. Sounds are freed from "impurities" of the material. The beginning of the century of radio music."

Theremin perfected the theremin throughout his life. The most interesting for us are his attempts to control this system through his gaze (more precisely, using a photocell that monitors the pupil), and in another version, using biocurrents. Such control systems, as we know, are beginning to be implemented only now - at a completely different technological level. But in fact, the theremin has retained to this day almost all the features of the original invention, only amplification tubes, naturally, have been replaced by transistors and microcircuits. At the end of the 20s, Termen toured with his instrument - first in Russia, and then in Europe and America. This event was a resounding success with the public. The leader of the world proletariat was not alone in his delight - during the inventor’s performances at the Paris Grand Opera, people burned bonfires in the street at night to get to the concert. Theremin performed in the best concert halls in Europe and America. One can imagine what an impression the “ideal instrument” made on his contemporaries. Although we are now accustomed to all sorts of electronic gadgets, the process of playing still has a stunning effect on the public. And in those days, when even an ordinary radio receiver was still a curiosity, Theremin’s stage manipulations gave the impression of a miracle: of course, a man can extract real music right out of thin air! By the mid-30s, the American Musicians' Union had already registered 700 representatives of the new profession “thereminer” (“theremin” in English is written as “theremin” - due to the French origin of the inventor).

This begs the question: why did the theremin never find such a wide niche in musical practice, as happened later, for example, with musical synthesizers? The reason is simple: the theremin is very difficult to learn to play. There are only a few outstanding performers of all time. In addition to Theremin himself, the American Clara Rockmore, Lev Sergeevich’s friend when he was in America, became a real virtuoso of playing his instrument. Theremin's great-niece Lydia Kavina (b. 1967), whom he himself taught to play from the age of nine, is now the most famous performer in the world. This is how she characterizes playing the theremin: “Violinists have a “mechanical memory,” but the theremin is played solely by ear. Tactile memorization is impossible here; you need good hearing and clear coordination of movements.”

Yet the theremin was far from forgotten after its initial triumph. “The Voice of Theremin” can be heard in the soundtrack to the Disney film “Alice in Wonderland” and in the musical of the same name, on the Led Zeppelin disc “Lotta’s Love”, in the compositions of the Beach Boys. Hitchcock used it. Nowadays, concerts of “thereminvocal” music in Russia are held by the “Theremin Center for Electroacoustic Music and Multimedia” at the Moscow Conservatory, and there are also classes for teaching those interested. Robert Moog2, known as the creator of the electronic synthesizer, began his career with a passion for designing theremins in the 50s. Moog Music now produces theremins with a MIDI interface, allowing you to connect the instrument to computers and synthesizers.

But let's go back in time. In the mid-20s, Theremin entered the St. Petersburg Polytechnic University to complete his physics education. With the consent of A.F. Ioffe chose the transmission of images over a distance as the topic of his thesis. And he coped with it more than successfully! A few years before Zvorykin’s first experiments in America, he built a real electronic TV. The TV had a screen no less than 150x150 centimeters (this was at a time when they experimented with screens in Matchbox), and resolution is 100 lines. And it worked! In 1927, representatives of the military elite of the Soviets - Voroshilov, Tukhachevsky, Budyonny - watched with delight Stalin walking through the Kremlin courtyard. You could even make out a mustache and a pipe. This demonstration, as it turned out, was fatal for the invention: it was classified in the hope of using it to protect borders. Needless to say, it was never implemented, and Theremin’s primacy in this matter was proven only in our time.

Theremin, apparently, was not very upset. In 1927, with the permission of the Soviet authorities, he went on the aforementioned foreign tour and, as a result, settled in America. There he made a career unprecedented for a Soviet citizen: he became a millionaire and was included in the “Who is who” directory. And he did it according to all the canons of the classic “American Dream”: he began by patenting the theremin and selling the theremin to RCA (Radio Corporation of America) a license for the right to produce theremin.

At the same time, he toured the States with concerts, taught those who wanted to play his instrument, and along the way was also involved in inventions in various fields - for example, visitors to New York's Central Park could observe the metal “Coffin of Mohammed” floating in the air (the result of magnetic fields). Using money from the business, Lev Sergeevich rents a six-story building for a music and dance studio for 99 years (!) and organizes the Teletouch company. How popular Theremin was in those years can be evidenced by his social circle: among his acquaintances were Rockefeller and Dupont, Charlie Chaplin, General D. Eisenhower, L. Groves (future head of the American atomic project), S. Eisenstein, J. Gershwin, B. .Show. He was friends with A. Einstein - together they played jazz pieces by Gershwin.

All this time, Termen regularly supplied information to the intelligence department of the Red Army - moving in such circles, it was not difficult for him to obtain it. Its leader, Jan Berzin (Peters), later shot by Stalin, gave Theremin a farewell message before leaving. The version put forward in 1998 by a certain L. Weiner from the Baltimore Vestnik, that Theremin and his company were just a cover for Soviet spies, is hard to believe. Not to use such opportunities for Stalin’s intelligence would be complete idiocy, but this particular department, unlike its party leadership, was not particularly distinguished by idiocy.

One way or another, in 1938 Theremin was taken to the USSR. Termen himself, at the end of his life, claimed that he returned voluntarily. It’s also hard to believe - he was taken out illegally and taken to the USSR on the ship “Old Bolshevik”. If Theremin had voluntarily gone home, he most likely would have returned openly; there were no obstacles to this. From then until the end of the sixties, he was listed as dead in America. Shortly before leaving, Theremin got married - his wife was the charming mulatto ballerina Lavinia Williams. In those years, such marriages in the United States were treated, to put it mildly, ambiguously, and from now on the doors of many houses of the New York elite were closed to him and the opportunities for collecting information were sharply reduced. Probably, this fact served as the reason for his superiors from the intelligence department to return the “resident” to his homeland. Theremin was promised that Lavinia would come after him. Fortunately for her, no one was going to keep this promise, and Lavinia only found out in old age what really happened.

But in fact, almost immediately upon arrival, in March 1939, he was arrested. All the political accusations of that time were absurd, but this surpassed all conceivable limits: Theremin was accused of complicity in the murder of Kirov. Prove that he was on the other side at the time globe, it was pointless - on August 15, at a special meeting of the NKVD of the USSR, he was sentenced to eight years under the notorious Article 58-4 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR.

Maybe, ex-friend Einstein and Chaplin and would have perished in Kolyma, as if thereby confirming the premature inclusion of him among the dead by his American acquaintances. But chance and an ineradicable desire for invention saved him. In the camp, he invented a device for transporting wheelbarrows - a wooden monorail. The authorities reported to the top, they remembered his past, and since 1940 he has been working in the sharashka, together with A.N. Tupolev and S.P. Korolev. Truly, it’s hard to remember at least one famous figure in Russia and America of the 20th century, be it politics, art or science, with whom the fate of Lev Theremin would not have crossed one way or another. In the sharashka, he first worked on radio beacons for ships and aircraft, but at the end of the war he received the task of developing a device for externally listening to conversations taking place indoors.

It was truly a brilliant development. It was like this: in February 1945, the heads of the three allied powers gathered at the famous Yalta Conference, during which plans were developed that, as it turned out later, determined the world order for almost another 50 years. The children, who were vacationing near Yalta at the Artek pioneer camp, presented US Ambassador Harriman with a touching gift - the American coat of arms. The bald eagle on the coat of arms was made of precious wood. American experts, having listened and tapped the gift for the presence of “bugs”, gave an opinion on its safety. Harriman placed the coat of arms he liked above the table in his Moscow office, where the eagle hung for almost ten years, outliving four ambassadors. In Beria’s department, the eagle was given the meaningful code name “Zlatoust”. The Americans revealed its true purpose indirectly - the discovered information leak could only come from the ambassador's office. Having finally found the “bookmark”, the Americans remained silent about the discovery until the early sixties - not only for reasons of a conspiratorial nature, but also out of elementary shame - even the very principle of operation was not immediately guessed by overseas experts. The “bug” was a hollow metal cylinder with a membrane and a pin protruding from it. No electronics! The secret was that when exposed to external electromagnetic field of a suitable frequency, the cavity of the cylinder came into resonance with it and the radio wave was re-radiated back through the pin antenna. The membrane vibrating under the influence of sound vibrations modulated the frequency of the emitted wave. Detecting the received signal was a matter of technology.

For this development, Termen not only received in 1947, at the personal recommendation of Beria, the Stalin Prize of the 1st degree (they say that Stalin personally corrected the degree from the second to the first), but also - an unprecedented case! - was even released. However, he had absolutely nothing to do in the wild - in fact, he had been isolated from local society for twenty years. The Stalin Prize was closed, the stigma of “enemy of the people” hung. Therefore, Theremin asked to return to the sharashka - as a civilian. In those years, he developed another remote listening system, the principle of which is now considered classic: sound vibrations are detected by changes in the frequency of scattered radiation reflected from window glass. According to some evidence, with the help of this device Beria listened to Stalin himself. Later, with the invention of the laser, such “eavesdropping” became very common.

In 1958, Lev Sergeevich was finally rehabilitated and even received an apartment at the Kaluga outpost in Moscow. But the formal restoration of his rights did not help him much - he could not get a job until 1964. Everyone who knew him in the twenties had already died or moved away, there were no official degrees or titles, the time for promoting electronic music was, to put it mildly, inappropriate - the fight against jazz and “hipsters” was in full swing.

Finally, he managed to get a job in the acoustics and sound recording laboratory of the Moscow Conservatory and actively took up his favorite hobby - improving electronic musical instruments. Many famous figures visited him - for example, A. Schnittke. But this period of Lev Sergeevich’s life ended rather sadly. Rumors that the once famous Theremin was alive were bound to spread sooner or later, and in one of the issues of the New York Times in 1967, a note appeared announcing that the inventor of electronic music, who mysteriously disappeared in 1938, had not died , but lives and works in Moscow. The reaction to this was not long in coming. The high “opinion” about the overly talkative employee was conveyed to the leadership and party organization of the Moscow Conservatory. The man whom Lenin himself had once greeted was fired, his tools were thrown away and broken.

Finally, by personal order of Academician Rem Viktorovich Khokhlov, the former world celebrity hired as a 6th category mechanic in the workshops of the physics department of Moscow State University. He worked there until his death in 1993, less than three years shy of his centenary. KI here, one of the “friends” advised Termen to try to get a separate room, under the pretext of improving living conditions, and since it was already clear that no one would ever give Lev Termen a separate laboratory, Termen was inspired by this idea. As a result, he managed to get a tiny room in a communal apartment in a university building near Moscow State University. Lev Sergeevich lived there for a relatively short time, since his two pretty roommates quickly persuaded him to exchange an apartment, and as a result of the exchange, Lev Sergeevich was given a larger room in a house located not far from Moscow State University, so that it would be convenient for him to go to work. This house was precisely the departmental house of the Izvestia publishing house.

Of course, it was a communal apartment consisting of three rooms, in which, in addition to Lev Sergeevich, three elderly people lived. It is unknown whether the sounds of the theremin bothered them or not, but we think that no, since Lev Sergeevich did not abuse music. Serenely laying out all the necessary ingredients, he made theremins to order, received journalists, and sometimes stayed overnight. And he really liked it. But a little later, changes occurred that Lev Sergeevich did not like too much. Since the elderly woman who occupied one of the rooms in the apartment died, the Izvestia publishing house, guided by considerations unknown to us, gave this room to the employees of the public utilities department.

So, a married couple with two children moved into the vacant room, and youngest child was a baby, and my husband subsequently began to abuse alcohol. This situation upset Lev Sergeevich and created a sufficient amount of inconvenience, which, it should be noted, he dealt with very courageously and categorically refused to complain to anyone, although even the general telephone and questions from neighbors to people who called directly to Lev Sergeevich, and not to neighbors, were unpleasant . However, it was still his laboratory, and he invited people there.

Lev Theremin was sympathetic to his young neighbor, but of course, it was still possible to use the room, but it was already extremely inconvenient. Lev Termen was even offered an apartment in Solntsevo, but Lev Termen was categorically against it; he was interested in living space located near his place of work - Moscow State University and not far from the apartment where he lived with his daughter Natalya.

They began to poison the “old man” much later.
In 1989, Lev Termen and Natalya Termen went to the electromusical festival “Synthesis-89”, held annually in the French city of Bourges, where, in parallel with the authentic Theremin theremin, a new experimental model of theremin was demonstrated.

Lev Termen gave many interviews, the mayor of the city of Bourget presented him with a medal of an honorary citizen of the city, everything was very wonderful, the only thing that was very sad was that invitations for Lev and Natalya Termen were sent to the Union of Composers of the USSR and Lev and Natalya Termen formalized their trip through the Union Composers. Which later played a very sad role in their fate - every year the French sent invitations to Lev and Natalya Termen, but for the first two years they arranged the trip, but at the last moment there were reasons why Lev and Natalya Termen could not come to the festival, which served a very unpleasant signal.

In 1990, Lev and Natalya Termen, at the invitation of the Swedish Radio and Television Committee and the Electroacoustic Association of Sweden, performed in Stockholm.

In 1991, two weeks after submitting an application to the Union of Composers with a request to formalize the trip of Lev and Natalia Termen to the festival in Bourges and to Stanford University (USA), threats began to be received against Lev Theremin and his family, with threats of execution, which were due to publication in the newspaper Sovershenno Sekretno, which used the title “He eavesdropped on the Kremlin” for the headline and included a photograph of Lev Theremin taken in Sweden.

The trip to Bourges was disrupted - someone from the Ministry of Culture left with Lev and Natalia Termen's tickets. The trip to America took place.

After arriving in Moscow, Lev Theremin did not visit the room in the communal apartment for a long time, but since many important things for him were stored there, in the end he was forced to go there and discovered that his room was completely destroyed and much was missing.

Since Lev Theremin did not appear there for a long time, one could only guess when this happened. Perhaps immediately after arriving from America, perhaps during the threats, but it is absolutely certain that it was not the neighbors who did this. This was done by people who knew who was being bullied. They poisoned the great one.

If Lev Theremin had been an “ordinary old man,” then nothing would have happened. In our country it is customary to blame the Soviet regime for everything. This is our old Russian tradition. But the tragedy occurred during perestroika and it makes you think. There is also a tradition that as soon as Theremin begins to communicate with foreigners, people in Russia begin to break his instruments. It was from the late 1980s that strange, deceitful articles about Lev Theremin began to be published, and in total this resembled a planned event.

But the main thing that occupied Theremin’s mind in the last 10 years of his life was not the theremin. He was seriously fascinated by the problem of immortality. Moreover, he was on the verge of solving this problem.

Theremin began to think seriously about immortality back in 1924, when Lenin died. Lev Sergeevich then repeatedly turned to the Soviet leadership with a request to freeze the deceased Ilyich. To bring him back to life after some time. And in the 80s, Termen, explaining in an interview with Bulat Galeev his idea of ​​“microscopy of time,” which was supposed to lead him to solve the problem of immortality, said this: “Red blood cells are such “creatures” (they are visible only under a microscope) , which happen different breeds, and they change due to a person’s age. Several dates and periods of their shifts have been discovered. And at these moments, new “creatures” fight with the old ones, hence aging arises. You need to be able to select these “creatures” from donor blood in a timely manner. And you need a lot of it! Therefore, how to catch them, at what age - and you can’t tell anyone!..”

His ideas about immortality were, of course, completely visionary. And the less chance they had of being understood. Another quote: “We have already conducted experiments in Medical Academy, with Lebedinsky. On animals. Some things have already worked out. But to study the behavior of blood cells, to learn how to select and multiply them, we needed an ultra-high-speed movie camera with 10,000 frames per second. And a very highly sensitive film is also needed, because these “creatures” cannot be illuminated strongly, they die from heat... After all, when we look through a microscope, we see everything at magnification many times over. But the speed of movement of these “creatures” in the blood remains the same. We need to slow it down by the same amount, and then we will perceive them in their natural form, as if we ourselves had penetrated their world. To do this, you will need to watch the film shot with an ultra-high-speed camera on a regular projector. I have already tried something and even figured out how to hear their voices, which we do not notice with the ordinary ear. I not only checked the blood cells, but also the sperm. All these “creatures,” you know, dance and sing under a microscope. And there is a certain pattern in their movement trajectories. This is very significant..."

These and other similar words by Theremin caused bewilderment and skepticism even among his friends from the world of science. Not to mention the people who distributed the funds... But Theremin never in his life suffered a single defeat in the implementation of his ideas, if it did come to this implementation.

Theremin was neither a convinced communist, nor even more so an anti-Soviet; rather, he can simply be called a patriot. Politics, which did not let him out of its embrace for a moment throughout his long life, starting from that moment in 1918 when he, a Red Army soldier, had to flee from the advancing White Guards, as such interested him little. At every opportunity, he took up his favorite pastime - inventing. His behavior towards the authorities could be described as “one hundred percent conformism”, if not for one incident. Unexpectedly for everyone, in March 1991, at the age of 95, he became a member of the CPSU. When asked why he was joining the collapsing CPSU, Lev Sergeevich answered: “I promised Lenin.”

By the age of 24, Lev Sergeevich had fought enough. First the First World War, and then the October Revolution... The command of the Red Army sent the young radio specialist first to the Detskoselskaya radio station near Petrograd, and then to the military radio laboratory in Moscow.

But by 1920, the wars finally subsided. Lev Sergeevich was given the opportunity to return to Petrograd and put on civilian clothes again. The front was amazing long life, in which great fame awaited him, and cooperation with the OGPU, and the Gulag...

But he is remembered, first of all, not for his intelligence activities, but for his instrument - the theremin. If electronic musical instruments can have their aristocrats, then the theremin (aka etherophone) is certainly one of them.

Its aristocracy is manifested in its absolute uniqueness - it is the only musical instrument that can be played without touching it - and in the difficulty of mastering it, and in its sound.

However, almost everywhere where we found any information about Theremin and his inventions, they also talk about the “duplicity” of the Theremin.

After all, this device, designed in 1920, could work not only as a musical instrument, but also as... a security alarm for particularly important objects.

Why not? If a musical sound arises out of nothing, “with the wave of a hand,” then why shouldn’t a siren be started by the wave of a malicious paw in a holey glove?

One of the most famous photographs Lev Theremin, taken during his tour in 1927.

Lenin himself was completely delighted when the inventor showed him both functions of his device. Just at this time, the VIII All-Russian Electrotechnical Congress was held, at which the famous GOELRO plan (State Electrification of Russia) was adopted.

Without hesitation, the Party gave Theremin carte blanche for further development - in both directions, naturally, but at the same time - and the task of promoting this instrument wherever possible, including abroad.

The main part of the theremin are two high-frequency oscillatory circuits tuned to a common frequency.

Electrical vibrations of sound frequencies are excited by a generator using vacuum tubes, the signal is passed through an amplifier and converted into sound by a loudspeaker.

An antenna-shaped rod and arc “peek out” - they act as the oscillatory system of the device.

According to the Big Soviet Encyclopedia, the performer controls the operation of the Theremin by changing the position of the palms. By moving his hand near the rod, the performer adjusts the pitch of the sound. “Gesticulation” in the air near the arc allows you to increase or decrease the sound volume.

“A theremin can sound like a violin, cello, flute, and so on (the timbre of the sound is determined by the operating mode of the generator),” says BES.

It was incredibly difficult to play such an instrument cleanly, without falsehood. Much more difficult than when playing the violin and, even more so, playing keyboards.

On a piano, organ, accordion or, at worst, a modern synthesizer, each individual key corresponds to a sound of a clearly defined pitch. You can, of course, “smear” it, but only if you miss the right key.

On the violin neck, as well as on the neck of the viola, cello, double bass and fretless bass guitar, for example, there are no clear markings on where to pinch the string to get the desired sound.

This is why these instruments are so difficult to master: it takes years of hard practice (not to mention excellent hearing) to “automatically” hit the right spot on the fretboard.

But even then, the performer’s hand moves here in one plane - up or down. And when playing the theremin, movements are carried out in space without contact with the antenna. Can you imagine how difficult it is to play such an instrument?

It must be said that Termen, by the way, a graduate of the St. Petersburg Conservatory in the cello class (1916), had not yet become a virtuoso of his instrument by the time the People's Commissariat for Education sent him to Europe and the USA.

And therefore, in America, after an enthusiastic confession, a loud “fe” followed: they say, you can’t be so shamelessly false. By the way, they blamed the instrument...

Clara Rockmore at the height of her fame.

But, as it turned out, all these were temporary troubles. A young emigrant from Russia, Clara Reisenberg, takes on the task of mastering the instrument.

She was trained as a violinist, but the hungry years in Russia weakened her hands so much that she could no longer play the violin.

And the theremin did not require any physical effort. And under the supervision of the inventor, Clara became a true virtuoso in six years.

According to some reports, there was a long and stormy romance between Lev Theremin and Clara Reisenberg. But alas, it ended with Clara Reisenberg changing her last name to Rockmore...

Her husband, Robert Rockmore, had a certain influence and fame in the field of music show business, so evil tongues say that Clara married Rockmore solely for career reasons.

For Theremin this was, of course, a blow. But, nevertheless, he continued his inventive, commercial and intelligence activities.

Actually, according to some reports, he did not spy against the United States. His task was to provide information about the sentiments of the American elite, in particular regarding Germany.

As for commercial activities, with the permission of the Soviet authorities, Theremin even founded the Teletouch company in the States, which was engaged in the production of electronic musical instruments.

In addition, RCA Corporation buys a license to produce “Theremins” - this is the name given to the works of “Leon Theremin”.

If we talk about inventive activity, then this time can perhaps be called the most glorious period of his work. A keyboard version of the theremin is being created (by the way, for some reason it never received much recognition, even though it was much easier to play).

The electronic cello that made Leopold Stokowski so happy.

An electronic cello appears (!), which was acquired by Leopold Stokowski himself. In addition, Lev Theremin created an instrument called “Rhythmikon”, which reproduced the sound of different frequencies when rotating wheels interacted with light rays, and a “musical platform” - “Terpsiton”.

The sounds of Turpsiton were generated by the movements of the dancers on it. From the realm of fantasy? - no, just physicists...

But these bright years were followed by a series of blows of fate, for which Lev Sergeevich Termen, if he himself was to blame, was only partly to blame.

He married mulatto ballerina Lavinia Williams. A visitor from Russia (or the USSR), why should he care about the idiotic bias of the American elite towards mixed marriages?

However, many doors were immediately closed in front of him, and therefore there were fewer sources of information, which greatly displeased the OGPU and the NKVD.

In addition, according to some reports, he dared to contact the German mission in New York for financial assistance, which extremely angered Moscow.

It is possible that some NKVD lieutenant received the order for the “brilliant operation” of kidnapping the “conspirator” Lev Theremin and taking him back to the USSR.

Minimum knowledge of this historical era and the morals of the NKVD also suggest that many “fighters of the invisible front” laid claim to Theremin’s warm place, and some of them only slept and saw how to kill the inventor who was interfering with him.

In 1938, NKVD agents pick up Lev Theremin from downtown New York and take him to Soviet Union. For his wife, the disappearance of her husband remained forever a mystery.

Lavinia Williams, Theremin's first wife.

It’s even scary to imagine how she felt, especially since rumors were actively circulating in the West that Theremin was simply killed.

By the way, he could well have been shot, and not even by the verdict of the “court,” but just like that, by the decision of the head of the Kolyma camp in which Termen ended up.

However, Theremin was lucky to survive. B. M. Galeev, one of Lev Sergeevich’s close acquaintances, wrote:

“1939. Butyrka prison in Moscow, where he “writes a report on a business trip to the USA.” Then Siberia, Kolyma, the ends of the Earth. Goethe’s Faust, as you know, ends his life in reclamation work. A friend of Stokowski and Chaplin works in a stone quarry.

He, too, would have died, for sure, if he had not shown ingenuity here too, coming up with a way to more easily transport heavy cargo - a wheelbarrow with a wooden monorail.

The war was approaching, and those “at the top” remembered the valuable personnel. Mephistopheles has a good memory - especially when it’s in hiding. The inventor was transferred to Omsk, then to Moscow.

He works in a closed design bureau, behind barbed wire, together with aircraft designer A. Tupolev and future spaceship designer S. Korolev. Invents radio beacons for aircraft, equipment for controlling unmanned aircraft.

The Chekists, as you know, were very “patronizing” then new technology, the latest scientific research, lovingly nurturing the military-industrial complex personnel in various kinds"Sharashka".

Unmanned aircraft, Korolev and Tupolev. No more and no less.

After the war, in 1947, Termen was awarded the Stalin Prize of the first degree for the invention of the Buran listening device.

"Buran" made it possible to record vibrations of window glass in rooms where people were talking from a distance of 300-500 meters and convert these vibrations into sounds.

Thus, from a great distance one could hear everything that was said behind the glass.

This bug was used to bug the American and French embassies. They say that Lavrentiy Beria liked to secretly listen to Comrade Stalin himself. Apparently, he really liked the leader’s speeches.

“Theremin, apparently, survived then only because his mind and talent were very necessary strong of the world this,” writes Galeev. — In addition to the Stalin Prize, freedom and an apartment in the prestigious House of Chekists on Leninsky Prospekt were awarded.

But freedom burdens him [Theremin] with its hopelessness. “In the beginning there was Business!”, but in freedom it is difficult and burdensome to do business. And - well, it’s not for us to judge him, God is his judge - Termen returns to the security officers, already civilian employees. Faust is again in the service of Mephistopheles, and right in his lair, in the closed KGB research institute.”

It is unclear how long this lasted. According to some sources, he was “released” in 1964, and then he got a job in the laboratory of the Moscow Conservatory.

According to other sources, he received full “forgiveness” and rehabilitation in 1958. In any case, during the period of working for the Soviet intelligence services, he managed to do “a lot of useful things,” and he himself spoke about this.

In particular, his listening device turned out to be in a gilded statue of an eagle, which Soviet pioneers gave to the American Ambassador Harriman in 1945. The “bug” was found only in the 1950s...

From 1964 to 1967 Theremin worked at the Moscow Conservatory. But in 1967, thunder struck over his head again: a newspaper correspondent New York The Times learned that Theremin was in fact alive and wrote a piece about it.

The paranoid tendencies of the Soviet government immediately made themselves felt: Theremin fled from the Conservatory, and only thanks to the help of his students he got a job at the physics department of Moscow State University.

Formally, he was a worker, but according to some reports, he continued to work until the very end. scientific research, including for military purposes.

Lev Sergeevich Termen at Stanford University two years before his death.

Echo American years was heard already at the very end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s. Termen is invited to visit Europe and the USA, he is released abroad.

In 1991, he gives concerts at Stanford University and... meets Clara Rockmore.

By this time she was already 80 years old. She agreed to this meeting with difficulty. As V.P. Borisov writes, she did not want the person once so dear to her to see her in unusual appearance

That same year, simultaneously with the fall of the Soviet Union, 95-year-old Theremin... joined the Communist Party.

When asked “why,” he replies that he once made such a promise to Lenin.

Actually, he tried to join before, but for his “terrible crimes” he was simply not given a party card. Stupidity and ingratitude - distinguishing feature Soviet officials.

Lev Sergeevich Termen, a great inventor and musician, passed away in 1993, having lived 97 years. They say about him that he is one of the many “Fausts” of the past century. But there is hardly a person on Earth now who has the moral right to condemn Lev Sergeevich for his “useful” inventions.

What about his musical instrument? The fate of the theremin is much happier than the Telharmonium, and even the Hammond organ. And the fate of the inventor too.

Suffice it to say that numerous modifications of theremins are actively produced and sold, and concerts with the participation of these instruments are not uncommon. It is characteristic that among the numerous manufacturers of theremins and accessories for them is the company Moog Music.

Bob Moog, or Bob Moog, inventor of the analog synthesizer named after himself, sincerely considered Theremin a genius. Recently, mugs began to be produced and sold again, and theremins too. And these tools, I must say, are relatively inexpensive - $400-500.

There is, however, an exceptionally sophisticated version with MIDI control. But it costs about $5 thousand.

At this address you can look at current theremins and even listen to their sound: sound fragments are attached.

Moreover, oddly enough, some models bear Mr. Moog’s autograph. Read about the Moog synthesizer in the next part of the “Music and Electricity” series.

“Mix, but do not shake”: a luxurious aristocrat, a favorite of women, a brilliant spy. “There is always an escape plan”: a strange intellectual, inventor of superdevices, head research center Secret Service. Russian intelligence officer and scientist Lev Theremin managed to live the life of both Bond and Q

Theremin and America:
on the secret service

This charismatic brown-haired man in his thirties, who suddenly and organically fit into the American elite of the late 1920s, did not correspond to Western ideas about an emissary of the young Soviet state. A physicist and stage star, Lev Theremin was aristocratic, elegant, possessed of graceful manners and impressive erudition. He really came from the nobility: the history of the French Theremin family can be traced back to the 14th century. However, at the same time, the young scientist was sincerely loyal to the Soviet authorities, who sent him first to Europe and then to the USA to show the world an amazing invention - the theremin. Termen, a cellist with a conservatory education, created a non-contact electro-musical device in the laboratory of the Physico-Technical Institute. While assembling a device for measuring the dielectric constant of gases at variable pressure and temperature, he thought of connecting instead dial indicator headphones. And a rumor spread through the floors that Theremin was playing Gluck on a voltmeter...

Lev Theremin gives a theremin concert in Paris. 1927

The very nature of the invention suggested the shortest path to the heart of the American public - through the show. “Professor Theremin’s Music of the Spheres” made a strong impression on the audience. The Soviet inventor gave concerts at the Metropolitan Opera, Carnegie Hall, and performed with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra at Lewisohn Stadium. Unusual musical instrument interested socialites and celebrities from the art world (actor and director Charlie Chaplin, conductor Arturo Toscanini, violinists Jozsef Szigeti and Yehudi Menuhin), largest companies Westinghouse Electric and General Electric entered into contracts with the scientist to produce theremins. Theremin quickly got used to the New York high circles, money appeared - he began to dress expensively, bought a Cadillac... The Soviet guest also promoted another invention - an audible security alarm; It was used, in particular, for the Sing Sing maximum security prison.

However, Theremin’s stay in the USA also had a secret purpose. From time to time, in a cafe on Fifth Avenue, the inventor talked with people in gray raincoats. He told them everything he had learned and received new assignments from management. Soviet intelligence. Subsequently, Theremin recalled that before the conversation he was forced to drink two glasses of vodka, and was indignant: really, they didn’t trust him? He sincerely sought to bring maximum benefit, using for this purpose numerous connections with the cultural, financial and scientific elite. Years later, Theremin said to his biographer Bulat Galeev: “After all, in America I was like Richard Sorge in Japan.” And in one of his last interviews he explained:

“I was well informed about the plans of the American political Olympus and from what I knew, I understood: not the USA, but the countries of the fascist axis are our future military adversary.”

Theremin had a tactic: in order to learn something new, secret, you need to share information about your own inventions. The image of a social dandy relaxed the interlocutor, which the Soviet scientist also willingly took advantage of, just like the most famous of the fictional intelligence officers, James Bond. He, by the way, is also probably of noble origin: in one of the books he was credited with being related to the real-life British Bond family, whose motto is “The whole world is not enough.”

Theremin and women:
the spy who loved her

What gives James Bond a special charm in the eyes of the female audience is the fact that he is successful with the ladies, but at the same time he is unhappy in love for the rest of his life. In the movie On Her Majesty's Secret Service, the only girl the superspy married was killed the day after the wedding.

Termen's wife Ekaterina came to him in the USA six months later. However, they rarely saw each other, and in the end the woman reported that she had met someone else. The lucky opponent turned out to be an American fascist, and the Soviet embassy strongly recommended Theremin to get a divorce.

At the same time, the inventor was by no means deprived of the attention of women. The affair with the most gifted of the students who took theremin lessons from him, Clara Reisenberg, began even before Theremin’s divorce. They loved to dance until they dropped in dance halls, and together they improved his invention. But the girl eventually married lawyer Robert Rockmore.

Lavinia Williams. 1961

And Theremin met 18-year-old Lavinia Williams in 1935. The dark-skinned beauty of African, Indian and Irish blood, artist, intellectual and polyglot danced in the American Negro Ballet troupe. This team helped Theremin work on a new electro-musical instrument, the terpsiton: the inventor sought to ensure that this device could be played through dance. The twenty-year age difference did not prevent a whirlwind romance. In 1938, Theremin and Lavinia got married.

However, in the 1930s in the United States, racism was an everyday occurrence, and many doors were immediately closed to the scientist. In addition, his business was hit by the Great Depression. Theremin lost his connections in high circles, for which intelligence probably especially valued him. At the end of 1938, the scientist was recalled to his homeland. Lavinia was assured that she would be able to follow her husband in two weeks, but she was never given permission to enter the Soviet Union.

Theremin returned to the USSR at the height of Stalin's repressions. “I was free for six months,” recalled the former agent.

Theremin and Kolyma:
die not now

Agent 007 in the films was sometimes considered dead even by his superiors, but Bond returned “from the other world” every time. That is why he is a hero, tailored according to all the canons of myth, in order to descend into the world of death and emerge from there renewed.

For decades, the entire Western world considered Lev Theremin, repressed by the NKVD, to have died in the camps. Lavinia also lost hope of seeing her husband alive. Subsequently, the long-lived scientist joked that it is not for nothing that the name Termen is read from right to left as “does not die”. In 1939, he, like many others, was convicted under the notorious Article 58 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, on counts 1a and 4 (treason and aiding the international bourgeoisie against the USSR and the communist system). They could have been shot on this charge, but the scientist was “only” sentenced to eight years in forced labor camps and sent to Kolyma.

Lev Sergeevich Termen. 1993

There, during the construction of a narrow-gauge railway near Magadan, he could have died, like many fellow citizens, from backbreaking labor in difficult conditions. Termen's professional skills saved him. The inventor made his work easier by making something like a monorail made of wood for the wheelbarrow on which he carried stones, and began to exceed the standards. And also, with the permission of the authorities, he created a symphony orchestra in the camp, fortunately there was no shortage of repressed virtuosos. The scientist was noticed. Less than a year had passed since he went under escort by train from Magadan back to Moscow. Theremin was assigned to the closed TsKB-29, the so-called Tupolev sharashka, where they worked under the leadership of the famous aircraft designer the best engineers- prisoners and civilians. Theremin developed radio control equipment for unmanned aircraft and radio beacons. For some time, his laboratory assistant was the future creator of spacecraft, Sergei Korolev. Later, Theremin was transferred to another secret institution under the NKVD, where he was to work on listening devices.

Theremin and the Trojan Horse:
from the USSR with love

So, Theremin is working for intelligence again. Not as an agent, but as a creator of spy equipment. No longer like 007, but like another Bond hero, a brilliant engineer Q.

The management set difficult tasks for the scientist. Soviet intelligence services have long been looking for ways to bug the residence of the American Ambassador in Moscow. Theremin was tasked with creating a listening device that the most thorough investigation could not detect. The scientist invented a unique device that did not require its own power source or radiation capable of producing it. All that was needed was a directional source of microwave radiation and a receiver for the reflected signal, both of which could be located at a considerable distance. All that remains is to figure out how to insert a “bug” into a carefully guarded embassy...

US Ambassador to the UN Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. (left) shows a panel with Theremin's listening device inside, which hung above the desk of the American ambassador in Moscow for seven years. 1960

In 1945, a delegation of pioneers solemnly presented Ambassador William Everell Harriman with a carved panel of precious wood depicting the state emblem of the United States as a sign of American-Soviet friendship. The diplomat placed an expensive gift above his desk. And the NKVD officers who settled in the neighboring house received information directly from his office thanks to the Theremin device hidden inside the panel. The listening device hung over the table undetected by four ambassadors; only seven years later they figured out where the leak was coming from.

Documentary"Leo Termin: an electronic odyssey"; released in 1993

But the scientist was required to create an even more advanced device that would operate without any equipment at all in the listening room. Theremin invented the Buran system, which records conversations in a room by the shaking of window glass, determined by the deviation of the infrared beam reflected from them. And this is long before the era of laser devices! Buran bugged the buildings of the American, French, and British embassies in Moscow.

For his inventions, Termen received the Stalin Prize in 1947. And Beria adapted the devices created by the scientist for wiretapping the residence of... Stalin himself.

Three generations of the Theremin family: the creator of the theremin plays his invention, his granddaughter Olga plays the piano, his daughter Natalya listens

“I don’t know what happiness is,” Termen told Bulat Galeev. - I can say that my life is interesting. I was always interested in finding out how everything works, helping... And even in Kolyma, when I was with a car, it wasn’t scary, because it was interesting - it was like I was watching a new movie.” The scientist paid for his heroic “roles” with freedom. For many years, Theremin was restricted from traveling abroad, and he was even forbidden to communicate with his relatives. In the 1960s, Theremin was fired from the laboratory at the Moscow Conservatory for an interview with an American journalist, after the publication of which the world learned that the inventor of the theremin did not die during the years of repression. In 1989, at the age of 92, Theremin was finally able to travel abroad - to the electronic music festival in the French city of Bourges. In his old age, the scientist got in touch with Lavinia, they corresponded, but the woman did not live to meet in person.

Jimmy Page plays the theremin at a band concert Led Zeppelin

Major inventions
Weapons and Muses

Illustration: Vladimir Kapustin,
Photo: Everett / Legion-media, Getty Images (x3), AP / East News, Alamy, Everett / Legion-media, NSA, Sarinee Achavanuntakul (CC-BY-NC-SA), Strelnikov / RIA Novosti (x2), Getty Images (x2), Everett (x3) / Legion-media

Polygamist

Among the few childhood memories that Lev Sergeevich shared with his family was a story about his first love. She struck him at the age of three. He said that he fell madly in love with a five-year-old girl. And until he was very old, he remembered the storm of feelings that arose in him when, sitting next to the object of his adoration, he touched her dress.

The same strong and not always successful loves happened to him later. In the early twenties, he often visited the house of his work colleague Alexander Konstantinov. This professorial family was simply poor. Theremin began helping them with food and money, and soon fell in love with Konstantinov’s sister Katya. He was not allowed to take his young wife to Germany, and Katya went to her husband along with her brother, who was sent abroad as a television specialist. However, when Catherine reached the States, her place in Theremin’s heart was taken. Theremin had a whirlwind affair with Russian emigrant Clara Reisenberg. The former violinist successfully mastered playing the theremin under his guidance and performed successfully throughout America. However, after completing her studies, practical Clara rejected Theremin’s hand and heart and married impresario Robert Rockmore, who was one of the whales of American show business.

WITH Theremin's next passion was again his student, Lucy Rosen. But this heiress to a multimillion-dollar fortune also rejected his marriage proposal. Theremin's hand and heart turned out to be needed only by the charming young dancer Lavinia Williams, who helped him work on the terpsiton. Obviously, not without the help of the “gray hats,” Termen filed for a divorce from Katya and received certificate No. 1 of the divorce of a Soviet citizen in the United States. And then marriage certificate No. 1. Along the way, he began to intensively practice boxing. As Theremin later said, he felt an urgent need for this: after all, his young wife was black, and then in the States they easily slapped her in the face for this.

He, however, did not say whether he had to put his boxing skills into practice. But much more serious blows immediately fell upon him. The scandalous marriage closed the doors of many houses for him. One after another, federal and municipal departments broke contracts with Theremin. Perhaps this is exactly what he wanted. Now he had nothing to tell his intelligence handlers, who believed that thanks to his connections, Theremin could steal an aircraft autopilot from the Americans. But there was another side to the coin: Theremin’s debts began to grow by leaps and bounds. He recalled that, despite all his efforts, he was constantly in debt from $20 thousand to $40 thousand.

In addition, the scandalous marriage brought him to the attention of the US immigration service. And they asked the question: why Theremin has been living in the country for more than ten years and remains a Soviet citizen, although he could have become an American without any problems? In 1938, Theremin felt very close attention from the authorities to his person. The “gray hats” advised returning to their homeland.

Theremin hesitated for some time. He remembered the fate of his brother-in-law Konstantinov, who in 1936 succumbed to persuasion, returned to Leningrad and remained free for exactly a month. Theremin said that he had to make an important invention for his homeland, which would justify his long absence, that he had to pay off his debts. But something else became decisive. As he later admitted: “When I arrived abroad, I thought that with my inventions... I would gain world fame, position and money, but I failed to achieve this. In fact, until the day I left for the Soviet Union, I remained a small owner of a handicraft workshop. I didn’t want to remain in this position in the future.” The last obstacle to leaving was Lavinia: he said that he could not go without her. But then he believed the promises of the security officers to deliver her to the USSR and agreed to go missing.

On August 31, 1938, under the guise of a captain’s mate, he boarded the Soviet ship “Old Bolshevik.” As one veteran of Soviet illegal intelligence told me, at that time this was the standard method of transferring people. In the captain's cabin there was a secret door to a closet where only a narrow bunk could fit. The captain's food was brought to his cabin, and the substantial portions were enough for two. During border and customs inspections, secret passengers were moved to more secluded places such as coal pits.

Upon arrival in the Union, it turned out that the "gray hats" kept most of their promises. Lavinia was not brought to him on the next flight. But Theremin was not arrested either.